CWS: The Murray State Racers Rode Team Culture To Omaha

OMAHA, Neb. – Johnny Reagan Field, the home of the Murray State Racers, might not be much to look at.

A media member who elected to drive from the east coast to Omaha for the 2025 College World Series stopped off to see the 800-seat home of the team that has shocked college baseball over the past two weeks, and showed World Baseball Network photos he took of the ballpark.

It could use new padding on the outfield wall. The scoreboard is sun-faded. The grass could use some help, and the warning track is crushed shale. But the best stories have humble beginnings, and the Racers’ humble home has seen something special happen this year.

Dan Skirka’s team made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 23 years, and then shocked national seed and regional host Ole Miss twice in Oxford, Miss., then knocked off Duke in the super regional to get to college baseball’s mecca for the first time in program history. They’re only the fourth team that has been seeded fourth at a regional to advance to Omaha, joining Oral Roberts in 2023, Stony Brook in 2012, and the 2018 College World Series Champion, the Fresno State Bulldogs.

It’s easy for fans to latch onto the Racers, who have by far the best story of the eight teams playing for the 2025 national championship, but the coach who will be in the opposite dugout Saturday knows what this team is — and what they are not.

They are dangerous. They are not a cinderella.

“I looked at Murray State and they had to go through Ole Miss. They had to go through Duke. They had to go through Georgia Tech. That’s all I need to know,” said UCLA head coach John Savage. His team will open the College World Series against the Racers at 2 p.m. EDT on Saturday. “I don’t need to think that they’re a Cinderella story. They’ve got really good players. They are very well-coached. They’ve got pro players.”

Sitting with three of his players in the press conference room underneath Charles Schwab Field, Skirka, who once interviewed for a coaching job in a truck stop Wendy’s, welled up more than once, describing the team he had put together.

Can you blame him?

One of the guys seated to his left on the dais was Jonathan Hogart, a Madisonville, Ky.-native who Skirka recruited three times — once out of high school, once out of junior college, once out of the transfer portal — who has hit 22 homers for the Racers this season.

Skirka took a chance on Hogart, knowing the potential he had, and it worked out for both of them.

“Went to Louisiana Tech. Got injured there. Thought I was done with baseball,” Hogart, a redshirt senior outfielder, said. “I hit the portal and then here comes Coach Skirka. He called at probably the most perfect time because if he didn’t call then, I was heavily debating on just packing up the cleats and never touching them again.”

His fellow outfielder, Dustin Mercer, was another guy that Skirka took a chance on.

“I was also really close to hanging it up when Skirk called me. Then I showed up. I had a good fall. I broke my wrist, missed pretty much that whole year,” Mercer, who transferred to Murray State from Virginia Tech, said. “In turning that around, Skirk never lost faith in me. He never questioned anything about my injury, how I’d come back from it. There was never even that conversation. Then once the season started the next year, he put me in the two-hole and he’s never taken me out. And I’ve been on some pretty bad tears before.

“Just having that faith knowing no matter I’m 4-for-4, 0-for-12 with 11 strikeouts, he has that faith that I’ll get it done when it matters. That belief in me makes me rise to the occasion as much as possible.”

That faith in his players, that culture that Skirka built over the past seven seasons at Murray State, is now paying dividends he could never have imagined.

“The culture, I know it’s cliché, but that’s the number one thing on my mind 24/7. That’s what these guys want. That’s what I promised them in the recruit progress. I don’t promise playing time,” Skirka said. “We don’t have all the bells and whistles. But I can guarantee them that we’re going to pour into them. And that’s on and off the field.”

Skirka makes his players compete with each other, and with themselves, because ultimately, he knows he’s not just building baseball players or a baseball team, but building men who will succeed long after their playing days are done.

“We go bowling. We compete. And our conditioning, we do some different stuff. It’s all in an effort to get them to be together. They do presentations in the fall. They share some stuff, and it hits home,” the coach said, his eyes welling up with tears. “When they can do that, open up. And then they talk about love and that’s awesome. Sorry. Because we try. We really do. We love these guys. That’s why we’re doing this is to pour into them. I love baseball. I love competing. But I really love developing these young men.”

“To be able to do that through this great game, it teaches all those life lessons, and I share my stories. I’m from humble beginnings, right, but to open up and to tell them what I’ve been through to help them. And it hits home more now, with my son being nine and wanting to be the type of coach that I want him to get to play for. And I get it when parents are turning their sons over to me and our coaching staff to lead them, to develop them, we take that serious.”

In the wake of the settlement of House v. NCAA, the class action lawsuit that will now enable schools to directly pay college athletes, a lot has changed about college sports in general, and this week in Omaha, there’s been plenty of unspecific talk about how the settlement of that case will change college baseball.

But Skirka’s team shows that the ultimate goal of college sports — building good teammates, leaders, and down the road, businesspeople, parents, and partners — hasn’t changed.

“Because of that man, I get to stand here, sit here with these two amazing players and teammates and forever friends and brothers that, I’m just so beyond blessed, so thankful and beyond grateful that I get to do this opportunity with these amazing people and one heck of a coach,” Hogart said.

Skirka’s Racers have at least two more games this season, and while they’ve already won just by making it to Omaha, they might not be done winning yet.

Call them an underdog if you want, but they’re here to win.

Photo: Murray State’s dugout cheers during an NCAA regional baseball game against Mississippi on Friday, May 30, 2025, Oxford, Miss. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)